Birthplace: Jae-ryeong, Hwanghae province
Last Known Address: Koryeo textile company basketball team's boarding
house (company apt Rm 301) at Youngdeungpo
Date of abduction: July 25th 1950
Place of abduction: his home
Education: Bachelor degree
Caree : Manager of the general affairs bureau at Kyeonghyang newspaper,
the executive director at the Korean Amateur Athletic Association,
the executive director at Athlete’s Association
Occupation back then: Basketball player

Date of Interview: June 4th 2002
Place: of Interview: Interviewee’s home
Interviewee: Kim Yong-il
Interviewer: Sah Yoo-jin


Path of Abduction and Escape

July 25th Youngdeungpo Internal Police Station ⇒ July 27th Political Security Bureau ⇒ July 29th Seodaemun (West Gate) Prison ⇒ Sept. 17th College auditorium at Cheongnyang-ni ⇒ Wui-dong,
Uijeongbu, Dongdoocheon ⇒ Hantan River, JeonGok Agricultural Association warehouse, Yeoncheon ⇒ Suan Elementary School (at Sibyeol-ri, Hwanghae province), Former Japanese 77 troop barrack ⇒ Oct 10th PyeongYang Prison, Oct 14th Escaped at the front of Seomun church ⇒ Oct 19th Aunt’s house (near Joon-ho Kim Otorhinolaryngology Hospital in PyeongYang) and freed upon ROK Army’s advance into PyeongYang



Q. What was your age and occupation back then?
At that time I was 28 years old and was an athlete at Koryo Textile Company basketball team. That team was
one of the best around the town. I had been playing for that team since my moving to South Korea.

Q. Were you at Seoul ever since the war broke out?
No, I haven’t witnessed the Han River bridge being destroyed, and I was headed southward with my team mates,
and stayed at my older sister’s house at An-yang. Other teammates all went southward.
While I was staying there I met my co-worker Jong-hyeon Yoon on the main street of the neighborhood. He was older than me and he is from PyeongYang, which means that both of us are from North Korea, so he always treated me like his younger brother. He said staying at Anyang is not safe, so I followed him and his family to go more to the south, and we reached Namyang.

There we rented a house and his wife and children slept in a bedroom, while both he and I slept in a cattle pen due to the small size of the room. We stayed in that house a couple of more days and suddenly North Korean army came into the town. We didn’t realize it until someone came into the house with a rifle and told us to go back to our town, saying that North Korean army had occupied that town.

Then I realized that it’s of no use to run away further, so I went back to my apartment and hid myself a few more days. Then on July 25th, somebody banged the door with his fist, and I opened the door, and there was a North Korean soldier with rifle and a snitcher who informed about me to him. He told the soldier that I was a member of Northwest Youth Corps, a rightist organization composed by people who are originally from North Korea and moved to South before the Korean War broke out. North Korean soldier shouted at me, “You ran away from North Korea, is it true, you bastard?”, and I could not but answer to him “Yes”. Then they took me out and put a gun behind me and shouted, “Move your ass!”, and I was taken to Youngdeungpo Internal Police Station at gunpoint.

I stayed there for 2~3 days and the detention rooms were arranged in a round shape, and when I looked outside my room I found my co-worker Jong-hyeon Yoon also being taken there. 2~3 days after staying there they took me to a former Government-general Library, a red brick house near where the Lotte department store is located nowadays. Inside the house there is a courtyard, and I was taken to there.

10 people were from Youngdeungpo Internal Police Station, and we were investigated 2 or 3 times. The investigation was through writing a self-statement. They asked us to write everything we had done till then, in my case, they told me to write down everything I have done for 5 years in the basketball team.

They beat me up and to make me write something about the “Yongsan railroad worker sweeping”
incident. There was a laborer’s union which is leftist organization, and they were planning a communist revolution. The South Korean government and Northwest Youth Corps joined forces to stop them from their scheme, and the police gave Northwest Youth Corps members guns and Northwest Youth Corps members cracked down the Yongsan railroad workers union and killed them all. So the investigators told me, “You are the worst, since you killed the communists.” and I answered, “I don’t know anything about that incident, since I’m a basketball player and playing basketball is the only thing I know!.” But for 2~3 days of my staying there they kept beating me up and urging me to write down the statement again and again, hoping to make me write about the Yongsan incident. You know, human brain is different from computer, and it is subject to change its memory if the brain’s owner is under continuous coercion and threat. I bet these days the North Korean investigators would do the same trick when investigating suspects.

After all those beat-ups and coercion, I was taken to Politiccal Security Bureau and stayed there for
3 nights. They put me in a dark room filled with some twenty or thirty people and we don’t know one another, and when they called my name “Kim Yong-Il!” then I went up to the second floor to write a statement in front of an investigator. Meanwhile, I heard the sound of tramping boots, and some soldiers came up. The investigator who was investigating me saluted to one of those guys, and I could recognize the guy’s face. He was one of my acquaintance, and he was a high-rank officer who had many subordinates including personal secretary soldier.

To give more of my historical background, during Japanese occupation period I was in Manchuria
till we got liberated from Japan. I came to South Korea in October 1945 to participate in a big sports festival for the celebration of Korea’s liberation. The festival started on October 21st and at that time I played for Jangsusan team and then got a job at Koryo Textile Company and from then on I played for my company. When I was in Manchuria I hung out with some Korean people and the North Korean officer was one of them. His name was Gwan-wook Jung from Yeonbyeon, Hwanghae province, he was an elementary school teacher in Manchuria, graduated from Baejae High School and became water polo player of Korea University. He had a pockmarked face and that’s why I couldn’t forget his face. When I left Manchuria, I actually ran away from the invasion of the Palroegun, the Chinese Communist Army. But Mr. Jung decided to stay there with his three Baejae High School alumnies, and probably that’s how he became a soldier. He came down to South Korea as a high-rank officer.

He called me and I sat down in front of him face to face. I felt relieved and thought to myself,
“Now I’m saved”. It turned out that his rank was captain. We talked about the good old days in Manchuria and he asked other peoples’ news. Then he asked to me to go back to my room, and I asked him for mercy on my case. But they kept on investigation on me.

2~3 days have passed, and one day they announced “People whose name are called, answer in a
loud voice and come out in front!” saying that they are going to send these people home. Again I thought to myself, “This guy is going to save my life”. 23 people were called and I was one of them. I hurriedly ran to the front holding my waistline of pants since I didn’t have a belt. Right beside 23 people the Political Security Bureau guys came. I could tell them by their appearance, their special hat called ‘Toriuchi’, and they wore casual clothes. Anyway I was thinking that we were going to be released and would go home soon, but the captain was nowhere to be found, and soon a bus came. We were pushed to take the bus, and the bus went through Hwashin department store at Jongno, Anguk-dong, JoongAngCheong (government headquarter building) to Hongjeh-dong. Then I changed to think that I was going to be killed at the outskirt of Seoul. But then the bus went through the Independance gate and it went into Seodaemun (West Gate) Prison.

Q. Who were those 23 people? Do you know anything about other people?
Not at all. We were all excited to go home but when we were being taken to somewhere we didn’t know we thought we were going to be killed. I could only think about my family. Anyway we arrived at Seodaemun (West Gate) Prison and stayed there for 40 days. After that when Seoul was recovered by South Korea, we were taken along with them without knowing where to go.

Q. What was the life in Seodaemun (West Gate) Prison like?
10 people were stuffed in a tiny room. On one corner there was urinal pot, and one day some people tried to break the pot in an attempt to escape from the prison cell, but North Korean army shot those jail breakers to death. Some more than a couple of dozen people got killed, and they moved the rest of people to other rooms, and I was moved to Building 4 Room 10. In that room there was the former governor of Gyeonggi province, and he became ill so he was moved to the hospital and I went in place of him to that room to make the room full of 10 people. All the people in that room were former policemen, government workers, Northwest Youth Corps members just like me, teachers. In the prison about 3,000 people were imprisoned and a third of them were young men, who are originally from North Korea. And also there were judicial officers and congressman candidates.

There was one notable person, Chang-geun Jeon, who was the main actor of the movie “Ja-yoo-
man-she (Freedom is forever)” and he was in the prison at that time. After I escaped from PyeongYang and came back to South Korea I came to meet him again, and I asked him “How did you manage to escape?”, and he said he ran away when we started to be taken to North Korea. So I told him my story of being taken to PyeongYang prison and escaping. While we were at Seodaemun (West Gate) Prison Mr. Jeon used to be on duty for food rationing, and he poured raw wheat to 10 big iron pots and put each of them to each prison cell. We were bullied by the guards and one day we got punishment of sitting down for 24 hours facing the wind. At that time we were wearing T-shirts and short pants, so it was quite cold. During the punishment we managed to sleep on and off and when we tried to whisper to each other the guards shouted out to us.

Q. What was your daily routine in Seodaemun (West Gate) Prison?
They investigated me 3~4 times in 40 days. The investigators carried a small desk and investigated one by one face to face. The daily routine was simple. We woke up when the day broke and went to bed when the night fell. We were always forced to remain quiet all the time. Once in a week they let us empty the urinal pot, and that was the only chance to go outside to take fresh air and sunlight, so everyone wanted to do that duty. I also did that duty once.

Q. When did you leave the Seodaemun (West Gate) Prison?
It must have been September 16th. I came into that prison on July 29th and stayed there for 40 days. It was a very dark night, and on 2~3 am the soldiers came to each cell and gave us our shoes and belts they took from us when we enter the prison. They threw big sacks that had all those shoes and we rushed out to get one pair per each, so the whole place became chaotic. It was really dark, so nobody can find his own shoes so we all took whatever were near us. After that they sat us down in a column of fours. They counted the number and it was about 3,000.

From there the long journey to PyeongYang has started. It took a bit more than 20 days, and we
formed a long line on the road. Having handcuff for more than 20 days even made callus on my wrists. I remember it was about 23 days. We wore handcuffs and were tied with thick ropes with one another. Streetcars were waiting for us.

The streetcar left Seodaemun (West Gate) Prison through Jongno and Dongdaemun to
Cheongnyangni. Meanwhile some of us has unlocked the handcuff and untied the rope and managed to escape when their surveillance was loose. In the evening we were taken to a red-brick building of a medical university and stayed there one night. Then the next day evening we left the building. There was one guy, Mr. Moon, who used to be a policeman at Anyang police station, and he taught others how to pick the lock of the handcuff. If you touch the hook of the handcuff with a toothpick and some skill it is unlocked. During the daytime we were in a forest and we move during the night, so we all practiced lockpicking during the daytime. But everytime we started to move, they examine each handcuff’s status, and if they see your handcuff got loosened they might kill you, so I always grabbed my fist tight so the handcuff stays tight on my wrist. Every night during our walk many people unlocked the handcuffs and ran away and many among them got killed.

After the night at hospital auditorium at Cheongnyangni, we moved to the forest at Wui-dong. At
that time 3 people got arrested after trying to escape. They were forced to knee down in front of
everyone and got open execution. It was a warning to the rest of us. Every morning usually they allowed
our going to toilet in pairs, so they loosened the tight rope and allowed 2 people to go to toilet together.
However, after that incident they made 10 people in the same tied rope go to the toilet altogether without
loosing the rope.

We kept going northward, and they told us often that they want to keep as many of us as possible alive, so that’s why they won’t move along the road during the daytime. But we always wanted to move during the daytime, since we all were willing to risk death. Whenever we left the place we stayed one night, everyone looked at south and all cried. Some of us wept and others wailed, thinking about their family, children, spouse and parents. We kept crying everyday. This continued for 20 more days. Meanwhile elder people came to be unable to keep up with the pace. Some people loose their shoes and others got their shoes taken off by the misstep of the person behind. In this case if we are in a normal situation we could have said, “Excuse me, I need to put on my shoes. Hold on a second.” However, in the long marching line that was not just possible. Once your shoe is taken off from your foot by mistake, you just loose your shoe and have to go barefooted. That was as terrible as hell.

In September, it’s quite cold at night, so we used a gimlet to break stitches of the sleeve and tip of the pants to make them longer enough to cover the skin. Then we ripped off the pocket and put the pocket cloth between the pants and socks and tied them with straw. The socks wore out and had no bottom, I pulled it up to cover the thigh, and put some dry tree leaves inside the shirts since it is a T-shirt and the weather got colder. From Cheolwon to Hwanghae province we moved many nights crossing many ridges and mountains. When you climb up a high mountain all night and the next morning you go down to the other side of the mountain. We got to Suan at Hwanghae province. I thought we were moved to Hamgyeong province but they took us to Hwanghae.

Elder people at that time came to be unable to even stand up. They cannot walk so they are dragged, then the time comes when they order all 3,000 people to sit down. And they picked out those who were not able to walk anymore, and then they made others continue moving forward except for those who could not walk. Then I could hear the sound of gunshots behind us. That was the sound of killing the disabled people who got left behind.

The weather got much colder day by day. From then on whenever we found the clothes used for covering firewood we took them out to wrap our bodies with them. There were 40~50 women among us. I also saw them previously in Seodaemun (West Gate) Prison when I went out to empty the urinal pot. At that time in prison women were allowed to come out of the building more often for cleaning their clothes after the women’s period.

Some people had reached their physical limit and started to die. Some of them were my school’s seniors and there were also Christian pastors. None of them kept silent at the moment of their death. They all shouted “Long live Seung-man Rhee (President of South Korea)!”, “My Father in Heaven!”, or “For the republic of Korea!”. That made everyone cry for sorrow. When we reached one place in Hwanghae province I don’t remember exactly where, they gave us half an apple per each person. The thing I can’t forget till now on that day was a rice ball. They gave one rice ball to each of us, so everyone got half an apple and a rice ball. When you eat them, you cannot help shedding some rice grain on your clothes and they are sticky enough to be attached on your clothes. They become hardened and remained on the clothes, and when everyone sits down in a mountain or in a school auditorium people start to search for some remaining rice grain on the clothes of other people. They pick the hardened rice grain out from other people’s clothes and eat them. It was hell on earth.

Q. What was your route after that?
We went into Suan Elementary School and stayed there one night. It was during moon harvest festival at August in lunar calendar. And then we moved to Sibyeol-ri. I remember at that time the people in town cooked moon harvest festival food such as jijimi(Korean pan fried food) and the smell of the food filled the whole town. We moved into the barrack of former Japanese 77 troop where Japanese soldiers used to be deployed during Japanese occupation. It must have been close to PyeongYang. We spent one night there before entering PyeongYang. It was early October, should be October 10th. We went into a prison and stayed there for 3~4 days. The original prisoners in that prison were gone, and it seemed that North Korean army had done something to them. No blood stains were found in prison, though.

The room they put me in was infirmary. Not a big room, but they put 40 people in it. They kept checking headcount for all night, and the number had been decreased to 2,400 from original 3,000. This shows how many people got killed and escaped along the way. I was not brave enough to attempt to escape, but along the way from Seoul to PyeongYang many people figured out where they are on the map and come up with escape plan and ran down the mountain like riding a sledge.

Anyway we spent the first night at PyeongYang in the prison auditorium. Its size was as big as an elementary school auditorium, and one of us were in charge of keeping the toilet clean, and that guy was distantly related to me, say, my distant uncle, and he was the father-in-law of the prime minister of South Korea, Doo-jin Baik. He was always busy and tired since 2000 people a day used that toilet. I felt so bad about him always watching the door of toilet with stick, since he used to be a candidate for congressman in South Korea. Back to the story of the first night at that auditorium, 40 people were assigned to the infirmary, and it was too small for 40 people. We spent 2~3 days together.

One night, they gave us the shoes sack and told us to come out of the room. Most people went out and we also did but later than most other people. We were lined up as a quarter column. Our group was total 80 people, 40 from my room and the rest from the room in front of mine. I noticed that there was one of my friends Man-geum and Sa-ryong Lee who was the son of a famous doctor in PyeongYang. Then I pulled them near me and put Man-geum in front of me and Sa-ryong next to me when they lined us up. We all sat down and they shouted “Stand up! Turn around! Fold your hands behind your back!”. Then they tied all of our hands with a rope. After that they made us go one step forward and sat us down, and continued doing the same to the next line’s people.

When we were taken from Seoul to PyeongYang, we were tied with a normal rope all the way, but this time God was kind enough to change the normal rope to the straw one, and this time they didn’t tie us with metal handcuffs. After seeing the straw rope, a thought flashed to me, “Now they are not going to take us further.” The reason being was that I could see through their intention that they didn’t want to leave the evidence of massacre. The body will decay and be gone but metal shackles and handcuffs won’t. I thought to myself, “These bastards are going to kill us near here and will bury us down.” At that time I already had an escape plan and shared it with Sa-ryong Lee who was next to me.

The soldiers in charge of us went to the dining hall and came back after having a night supper. There were 4 of them. 80 people were controlled by 4. They led us out of the prison and we all came to the PyeongYang city downtown. The prison was located in PyeongYang city. After a short walk, they stopped us and sat us down. 4 soldiers were discussing about something in a whispering voice right beside me. I overheard and they were saying, “There’s a problem. What should we do with these people? We didn’t get an instruction from upper management regarding what to do with these people.” It seemed that they missed the instruction from their boss while eating the night supper.

They were whispering to each other that they had no idea whether to take us to Botong River which was to the north or to PyeongYang station. I perceived I got a chance. I looked to the sides and I found the bell tower of Seomun church. Then I figured out, “Ah, If I go this way, I will find Soong-shil Middle School where I used to play basketball, and if I go that way I will find my aunt’s house.” Then I knew what to do. I bit the straw rope again and again till I finally bit it off, and I got free from rope. Those 4 soldiers didn’t notice it even though they were beside me since it was a very dark night. I whispered to Man-geum in front of me my plan of escaping and asked if he would join. He said he wouldn’t take risk.

By the way, there was a rule made by the soldiers that the person right behind the escaped person would be killed. Since they couldn’t watch all people at one glance so they made the rule so each people watch each other. Then I started moving around and other people started to bustle. I ran to the road and crossed it, and there was a truck coming toward me with its headlights on. At that time PyeongYang got air raid every night, so the headlights were covered to dim down the brightness. One car got past me and another one just follwed. I jumped behind that truck, and I tried to figure out where exactly I was.

Then I looked back at my group of people, and the soldiers found that I was escaping, and they shouted “Stand up!” and started shooting guns at me. I had no idea whether they were shooting blank cartridges or shooting toward the sky or toward me. I ran away to the opposite alley and there was one guy following right behind me. I guessed it must be Sa-ryong Lee, but it was not one guy but two. We ran together far from the group and lay flat to the ground. At first the soldiers seemed to start following us while shooting at us, but soon they realized that they could lose all 80 people if they kept following us. Then they shot a couple of more times and went back to the group.

After that, there was a silence. One of the guys who escaped together turned out to be Sa-ryong Lee. First I untied his straw rope, and started finding my aunt’s house. It was mid-Winter and we were so exhausted and felt cold, and we almost felt that it’s all over and we couldn’t make it further. I honestly told Sa-ryong what I had on my mind. I suggested him about breaking into any house and stealing some food and other stuffs. I felt I couldn’t move any more and the day was breaking and we had to survive at any cost, so maybe those circumstances led me toward that conclusion at that time. But Sa-ryong, 2 years older than me, was more prudent and poised. He told me like he was my older brother, “Mr. Kim, we shouldn’t do that. Instead, we take some rest here and get back energy and sound mind, and continue finding your aunt’s house.”

At that moment the day already broke and we looked around and found a dugout for air raid shelter. We went into the dugout and it was a long trench. We had no choice but to go into the trench since we too obviously looked like jail-breakers since we were all covered with charcoal soot. It was October at that time and the road was already covered with charcoal and its dust. All night long we got all the dust on our clothes during escaping.

After going into the trench we slept for a while, and I snored too loud. Sa-ryong woke me up and said my snoring was loud enough to be heard from outside. He said, “We shouldn’t sleep any more since you snore too loud.” After getting up we moved out of the trench to go to my aunt’s house. Then we came across a police station right in front. There was a guard, and we must get past him to reach my aunt’s house. We stopped going toward the police station and crossed the street to the other side. We made a plan of waiting for the guard’s taking a short break and going in to the police station. After he went in, we got past the police station one by one, putting some interval in between. We finally reached my aunt’s house.

The husband of my aunt ran a hospital, and there was a big gate next to the hospital’s glass door. I knocked the big gate but nobody opened it. There was an alley next to the big gate and I saw a small door of the neighbor house. I knocked that door hard and a girl aged 17~18 opened the door. We entered the house and there was an old woman who looks around 60 years old. I told her about my aunt, Jeong-hyeon Won, who was born at Anak, Hwanghae province and graduated from Hosoodon Girl’s High School and Kyeongseong Nursery School, and was a top-class tennis player. The husband of my aunt, Joon-ho Kim was a doctor whose major was otorhinolaryngology. I told the old woman all about my aunt and her husband, and she said of course she knew them well. But she told us she couldn’t hide us inside her house, since the communist army will kill her if they find out she provided a shelter for us. Then I told her that we would leave but asked her for a men’s jacket, and she brought one for me. That was the ‘citizen jacket’, a type of apparel worn by many people during the Japanese occupation. It must have been the jacket of the man living in that house and was quite small for me, and a thought flashed through my mind, “Whoever this man is, I can domineer over him if something happens.” Anyway I thanked her again and wore the clothes, and then I sat down on the floor and stubbornly persisted that we wouldn’t leave the house. It turned out that my aunt’s family had already evacuated to a temple far away from the house a couple of months ago. I told the old woman that the South Korean army was marching toward PyeongYang and they would reach PyeongYang soon, and asked her again to let us stay in that house. She then showed us a small door that led to the hospital, and opened it for us. We went into the hospital.

Staying in the dark room for a few days, it became October 19th. It was 4 or 5 am, still dark. I heard the sound of gunfire from far away. We had no way to figure it out, you know, we were isolated from any source of information such as radio. We waited for the gunfire sound to be finished, and then we heard the sound turns into "Hurray! Hurray!" and it became louder and louder. The old woman in the neighbor house came in and told us the news of South Korean army's taking over PyeongYang. She said the army will stay at Hwashin crossroad, the center of the downtown PyeongYang. At the news I walked out, but I couldn’t walk well, so I held the walking stick of the husband of my aunt and walked using it. I was wearing short pants with a walking stick, standing alongside the road watching the parade of South Korean army, and clapped hands, then sat down there with Sa-ryong for a while.

Sometime later, some women and men, around 10 people total, came to us. They asked, “May we ask who you are?”, and they told us that they were family members of the original prisoner of PyeongYang prison. They went to the prison to find their family members, but all they found was the blood all over the building. The North Korean army killed most of the prisoners there and took some remaining prisoners with them. After that, they came to the downtown and found us, and they assumed that we used to be one of those prisoners. I told them about my story of being taken from Seoul to PyeongYang and escaping from the soldiers and hiding until that day. After hearing the story, a woman among them searched her pocket and took out some North Korean currency and gave it to us. She said she would like to invite us to her house and treat us a meal but she couldn’t because she lived alone and at that time it was against common sense for a woman living alone to invite men to her house. For this reason she couldn’t invite us but instead she gave us some money so we could get some meal in a restaurant. She was such a kind-hearted person, and Sa-ryong and I wept for her kindness and thanked her again and again. At that time there were touching scenes like this.

After that, I and Sa-ryong stayed at my aunt’s house, and my aunt’s family came back from the temple and we all came to meet at her house with such a great joy. Then Sa-ryong and I visited the South Korean army military police. We asked them to issue us the permit document for crossing the checkpoints. We met the commander of the South Korean military police, Jung-eun Kim, and I told him our story and asked him to issue us the permit document so we could go back to Seoul. After listening to me, he issued us the permit document and also gave us some cigarettes.

We left PyeongYang and crossed the Daedong River by boat. Then we got free ride from the South Korean military police truck bound for Seoul. In the middle I got off at Sariwon, and Sa-ryong continued his ride to Seoul. Even though I felt difficulty at walking at that time, I was so happy to go back to visit my hometown, Jaeryeong, which was near from Sariwon, that I walked all the way from Sariwon to Jaeryeong, about 20 km’s distance.

It was a sad homecoming, going back to my hometown after being almost a beggar. I went to my parent’s house and it was all locked, but there was my mother, and my father turned out to have passed away. There were also my cousin and his wife. When I entered the house my mom was very surprised to see me back to her alive. After that, for about 15 days I almost lost consciousness and couldn’t get up from the bed. I couldn’t move a finger at that time. Little by little I started to recover, and I was able to walk from my room to the gate, and I kept on practicing walking. My another aunt’s house was 100 meters away from my parents’ house, and I practiced walking between two houses. One month later, we heard the news of China’s joining the war, so we left the house to come down to Seoul.